


Bridle

by thecarlysutra



Category: Thunderheart (1992)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-23
Updated: 2012-11-23
Packaged: 2017-11-19 08:37:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/571323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecarlysutra/pseuds/thecarlysutra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>SUMMARY: “I don’t want to talk about it,” is usually Ray’s reaction to questions about his childhood. <br/>AUTHOR’S NOTES: Written for slashthedrabble prompt #337: childhood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bridle

  
“I don’t want to talk about it,” is usually Ray’s reaction to questions about his childhood, and that only if he’s feeling particularly chatty, which generally he isn’t. More often, he’ll just get quiet, some part of his face closing off right before Walter’s eyes, his jaw tightening and his mouth thinning to a hard line. Like a bank vault shutting closed, iron bars and no way in.

Walter doesn’t really understand, since Ray seems to get on well with his ma, and he was doing fine with his stepdad until Ray moved out west to live with another man. That’ll take some adjustment, Walter figures; he’s never met the man, but to him Ray’s stepdad seems a little tight wound, tradition bound, and so inviting a gay son home for Christmas will take a little time.

It’s Ray’s real father that’s the enigma, since Ray doesn’t talk about it and Walter knows better than to ask. But Ray doesn’t like kissing Walter when Walter’s been drinking, and Ray won’t even drink cough syrup with alcohol in it—that time he caught the flu, he sent Walter back to the general store for the other kind, even though it was snowing hard and Walter can’t tell the damn difference, anyway.

Ray has a scar right below his left elbow, a jagged L he claims is from falling out of a tree. But he always drops his eyes when he gives that explanation, not like when he explained the scars from his appendectomy or his knee surgery, or even the long one over his hip where he got stabbed on the job. Walter has his suspicions, but he knows better than to say anything. Ray’ll just get riled, and anyway, he’ll tell him on his own time.

Instead, when Ray gets that closed vault look on his face, Walter will pull him close, and kiss him. He’ll rub Ray’s back the way Ray likes, palms flat like easing on down a nervous horse—because for all his fancy FBI training, all the quiet hours on stakeouts and learning how to sit through tortures of other kinds, Ray is high-strung as an unbroken mustang. It’s something only Walter sees; most people see the official Fed suit and the expensive sunglasses, the set of that fine jaw, and think Ray is a serious man, but when they’re alone together and Ray can drop the act, he’s nervy and young and still raw and wild. And maybe some people would try to tether him, to slip that bridle on and force out Ray’s secrets, force him to settle, but Walter’s content just to be along for the ride. He can take the not knowing every little thing, to having suspicions unanswered, so long as he gets to stay with Ray, the wildness and the sweetness of him. And at night when they’re in bed together, Walter will trace the jagged line of the scar on Ray’s arm, and it’s enough that Ray lets him.  



End file.
